the reward for total abstinence from alcohol seems, illogically enough, to be the capacity for becoming intoxicated without it.

Great music is in a sense serene; it is certain of the values it asserts.

In England and America a beard usually means that its owner would rather be considered venerable than virile; on the continent of Europe it often means that its owner makes a special claim to virility.

There is, of course, no reason for the existence of the male sex except that one sometimes needs help with moving the piano.

Babbitt as a book was planless; its end arrived apparently because its author had come to the end of the writing-pad, or rather, one might suspect from its length, to the end of all writing-pads then on the market.

Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.

The case against religion is the responsibility of God for the sufferings of mankind, which makes it impossible to believe the good things said about Him in the Bible, and consequently to believe anything it says about Him.